Kilkis wrote:...According to the text I received from Virgin, when I turned the phone on in Greece, it costs 4p/min for calls to any phone in the UK or Europe and 1p each for texts to any mobile in the UK or Europe. I've not checked this...

I have now checked the text charge. I sent a text to a UK mobile in the UK using the Virgin Mobile SIM and it appears as £0.01 on my recent activity report. Certainly a lot cheaper than using the Greek Vodafone SIM.

Funny how changes that are supposed to benefit you don't? As I reported above, before the end of roaming charges I was being charged 4 p per minute for calls and 1 p per text on my UK pre-paid Virgin Mobile phone no matter who they were to. Now that roaming charges have officially ended, under EU Regulations, I am being charged 12 p per text to a UK mobile, 20 p per text to a foreign mobile and 40 p per minute for calls. I feel so much better off now.

If anybody else has a Virgin mobile I experienced an interesting problem when I went to France and the UK recently. In Greece and France the UK SIM connected to a network straight away with no problem. When I got back to the UK it didn't, it reported no service. The Greek Vodafone SIM connected everywhere with no problem. I experienced the same problem a couple of years ago and never got to the bottom of it. I tried manually selecting a network but Virgin did not show, only O2, Vodafone and EE. Since Virgin now comes under EE I forced it to manually connect to EE and sure enough it connected to Virgin on my UK SIM but I lost Vodafone from my Greek SIM. It appears that it applies whatever selection you choose to both SIMS. I then repeated the SIM selection process but told it to connect automatically. This time it picked up both Vodafone and Virgin. The wonders of technology.

Were you actually expecting to benefit, Warwick? I was, and my texts have gone up from 1p to 15p. There's no end to it is there? We are just walking cash machines for big business. And the best bit is no-one says a word.

I gave up expecting to benefit from such changes many many years ago, Andrew. I posted it as a warning because I am sure, given the publicity around the ending of roaming charges in the media, a lot of people will be thinking that their roaming calls will have become cheaper but "It ain't necessarily so".

Quite. An increase in texts from 1p to 15p is not actually explained anywhere, and I cannot make sense of it in the context of "no more roaming charges". Can I be bothered to contact them and listen to some trained monkey reading a carefully worded post-rationalisation off a screen? Probably not.

Quite. An increase in texts from 1p to 15p is not actually explained anywhere, and I cannot make sense of it in the context of "no more roaming charges". Can I be bothered to contact them and listen to some trained monkey reading a carefully worded post-rationalisation off a screen? Probably not.

Perhaps I'll just go down to the kafeneio.....

Andrew

No more roaming charges actually just means your tariff will work the same wherever you are within the EU, so if you have 1GB of data 300 minutes free calls and unlimited text as an example included in your tariff then you will not be charged within the EU if you stay within your allowance.

scooby wrote:............No more roaming charges actually just means your tariff will work the same wherever you are within the EU, so if you have 1GB of data 300 minutes free calls and unlimited text as an example included in your tariff then you will not be charged within the EU if you stay within your allowance.

That may be so, but no-one asked me if I wanted my text charges to go up by a multiple of 15. I paid no roaming charges before. I paid 1p per text in UK and in EU. Now I pay 15p per text. Terrific.

Don't forget that the 'roaming' charge is only if you are using a sim 'foreign' to the country you are in when you make the call. - Hence the word roaming.' - It is cheaper to ring the UK from Greece on your UK mobile than a Greek one. (You are then roaming abroad!). A call to a Greek mobile or U.K. mobile from a Greek sim will be more expensive! (Nobody is roaming!).

If you go over your allowance on a contract, your charges will shoot up. - They vary from each provider. The important thing to remember is that any Greek mobile is NOT seen to be roaming if you make a call from Crete to the UK. It is a Greek 'phone and therefore on 'home territory!'

A call between two mobiles, both using UK SIMs, is a national call wherever the phones happen to be within Europe. Under the new rules it should be no more expensive than a call between the same two phones if they were in the UK. The same is true of a call to a UK landline using a UK SIM.

A call to a Greek mobile using a UK SIM is an international call whether the UK mobile is in the UK or in Greece. Under the new rules it should be the same price whether the UK mobile is in the UK or in Greece. The same is true of a call to a Greek landline using a UK SIM.

A call between two mobiles in Greece, both using Greek SIMs is a national call.

A call from a Greek mobile to a UK SIM is an international call whether the UK mobile is in the UK or in Greece.

Which is cheaper in absolute terms will depend on the charging tariffs of the various mobile operators for the different types of call. Also some operators have a "fair usage" policy, especially for data, by which they may charge you more if you have excessive usage.

You could be correct Kilkis. The only reason I gave the explanation above is because I saw a question about 'roaming' charges being answered by some technical person on the BBC News. The question was from a lady who lives in France but rings her daughter regularly in the UK. She wanted to know if it would be cheaper to use her mobile or her landline. She was told that the whole idea of the word 'roaming' was that the calls would not be made from your own country. -Therefore if you used a French mobile from France it wouldn't been seen as a 'roaming' call.

Maud wrote:...She wanted to know if it would be cheaper to use her mobile or her landline...

It depends on what sort of Mobile?

If it was a French mobile with a French SIM tied to a French network then it would be a French Mobile International call charged at whatever rate her French network charge International calls to the UK.

If it was a UK mobile with a UK SIM tied to a UK network then it would be a UK national call charged at whatever rate her UK network charge national calls within the UK. With roaming charges abolished it would not be increased in any way because the mobile was in France at the time..

The landline call would also be an International call and would be charged at whatever rate the French landline network operator charge International calls to the UK.

I would have thought all the figures would be on the web sites of the operators concerned.

Sorry, I didn't make that clear. Her mobile was a French one. She was told that as she was using a French mobile (sim) in France, it wouldn't be seen as 'roaming'. This had nothing to do with her provider. It is all about the 'hidden' aspects of 'roaming.' If she used a UK sim in France it would be accepted as 'roaming' - and as long as she kept within the limits of her contract, she would benefit from the new roaming charges.

Obviously a French mobile using a SIM issued by a French operator being used in France is not roaming. Roaming means using your phone in a country other than that where the mobile operator is. If she was asking, "Which is cheaper for calls to the UK, my French mobile or my French landline?" then I have no idea why she asked the question. Just look up the International call tariff for the mobile operator and the landline operator.

There are no "new roaming charges". Within the EU there are NO roaming charges. I will use Greece for the rest of my post to make it more relevant to people on Crete.

The point everybody seems to be missing is that a call to the UK from a Greek mobile using a Greek SIM is a GREEK INTERNATIONAL CALL. A call to the UK from a UK phone using a UK SIM, even when it is in Greece, is a UK NATIONAL CALL. Now that roaming charges have been abandoned, which is cheaper is nothing to do with roaming. Which is cheaper depends on the International call tariff of the Greek operator compared with the National call tariff of the UK operator. Typically International call tariffs are more expensive than National call tariffs so you would expect using the Greek mobile to be more expensive BUT different operators in different countries may have very different tariffs so it is important to check for each operator. Before roaming was scrapped the UK operator would add an additional charge to the National call tariff so using the UK mobile was often more expensive but again it depended on the individual tariffs of the two operators and the level of roaming charge.

For calls in the opposite direction, anybody calling a UK mobile from a UK mobile or landline will be charged at a national call rate even if the mobile being called is in Greece. Before roaming was scrapped the owner of the phone receiving the call had to pay the International cost of the call. With the scrapping of roaming charges the payment by the person receiving the call was scrapped. In fact this aspect was brought in some time before roaming completely ended.

I rarely make international calls but when I do I use Skype and I don't need to be in front of my PC as there are apps for Skype for mobile (iphone and Android). Companies like OTEnet are beginning to change to VOIP: I recently upgraded my VDSL30 to VDSL50 and my landline is now VOIP through the router.